This invention relates to a cover, and in particular relates to a cover for a swimming pool.
In recent years, many young children have accidentally fallen into domestic swimming pools, and have drowned. Many proposals have been advanced to prevent such unfortunate occurrences. It has, for example, been suggested to build fences around swimming pools.
The most practical way to prevent a child from falling into a swimming pool is to cover the pool. Covers are also useful for keeping dirt out of a pool when it is not in use, to prevent evaporation of the pool water, and to maintain the temperature of the water in a heated pool.
Many types of pool covers are in existence, but none has proved to be totally satisfactory, particularly for "below-ground" pools. "Below-ground" pools are more difficult to cover, because they are usually larger than "above-ground" pools and because they are situated below ground level, which later feature may allow a child to crawl beneath a cover and fall into the pool.
In addition covers which simply consist of a flexible waterproof material are unsatisfactory because they tend to form a concave surface, which collects rainwater. There have been documented instances where children have fallen into this concavity, and have drowned in such a pool of rainwater. Covers which are secured to the surrounds of a pool in order to prevent such entry into the pool suffer from the disadvantage of being very inconvenient to remove, taking some considerable time to remove and store away from the pool.